$1K+/Month Selling Simple Printables (Pretty Hands-Off)

Chelsea Shelton is a former elementary school teacher who started selling digital printables on Etsy during maternity leave.

Her first product was a simple spring cleaning checklist designed in Canva 😎

First sale came within 5 days.

She now has over 700 products and earns $1,000 to $1,200 a month – largely on autopilot 🤑

Her biggest early mistake was making products she personally liked. The shift that changed everything was following what people were already searching for.

Her research process 👇

• Type a keyword into Etsy’s search bar – the autocomplete shows what buyers want
• Use tools like E-Rank and Everbee to validate demand
• Sweet spot: 4,000 to 6,000 monthly searches, under 20,000 competing listings
• Niche down hard – “ADHD spring cleaning checklist” beats “spring cleaning checklist”

Simple printables sell for $1.50 to $5. Editable or fillable versions go higher. A year-round “buy 3, get 25% off” deal boosts her average order value 🚀

About 25% of her income comes from Teachers Pay Teachers – selling the same products to a different audience.

Will AI soon kill this kind of business? 🤔

Chelsea doesn’t think so – most buyers aren’t going to mess around with prompts. They want the finished product, ready to print.

Seasonal printables are the real play here. Create them once, they sell again every year 🥳

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